Clause 19
Education and Inspections Bill
9:45 am
Edward Leigh (Gainsborough, Conservative)
I meant that schools respond to the situation in which they find themselves—to what parents want, and to what they can and should do. That is what life is about, and surely it is what we all do. We provide a service, whether in the public or the private sector, and, depending on our skill or professionalism, people choose whether to use it. Parents are in that situation.
Once schools were free to manage, it would become apparent to parents which school they should send their children to. I agree that most would usually want to send their child to the nearest school. There would not be a revolutionary change. The education system of the early 1950s would not suddenly be replicated, and hundreds of new grammar schools would not freeze out the existing comprehensive schools. Some comprehensive schools might, it is true, want to select more pupils on the basis of ability, but not all would do so, and I do not think that comprehensive schools would suddenly become grammar schools. Others may disagree with my view, but we should at least have the courage of our convictions and allow people the freedom that they surely deserve.
If my amendments were accepted, it would follow that the education departments of county councils, metropolitan boroughs and unitary authorities, which we refer to as local education authorities, would no longer be needed. Even the Department for Education and Skills would have a lot less to do. The independent state schools would be funded according to a precise, easily understood formula, and their funding would be paid to them, probably termly, by a funding agency set up precisely for that purpose. That agency would in turn be paid directly by the Treasury.
With a simple and sensible funding formula, little bureaucracy would be needed. As to the Department, I am sorry that there are officials present, as I am sure that they do a worthwhile job, but I guess that they could be equally well employed elsewhere in Whitehall, because the role of the Department would be very small indeed. Perhaps only about 100 people would be needed altogether to be involved in policy.
My new clauses and various amendments tabled by my hon. Friends and me all point in the same direction. It is time for the education system to come of age. It is time to let schools off the hook of excessive bureaucracy and regulations. It is time we really had—not eventually, but now—independent state schools.